Handtops, UMPC

10/13/04 + sn0n

i was wondering how well any of these machines would run linux. and wich one would be best equipped for the task.
ie, have sound, working networking, etc...

10/13/04 + Chekote

None of the handtops are out, so no one knows yet...

Recent Blog: Flipstart Camera

10/13/04 + illucid

Well..... The Sony U50/70 is out but its totally hideous with Linux :P

10/13/04 + captain

I can attest to illucid's statement. I tried to install Linux on a U50 and couldn't even get a floppy to boot! Let alone attempt to install an OS. Dissapointing.

Recent Blog: Samsung Q1 Ultra released

10/14/04 + fil

Install Suse using a Firewire cdrom and you should be working.

There are a guides available for Suse Linux installation on a U70.

Recent Blog: Apple iPhone Switch

10/19/04 + kksh2004

check this link out, Zaurus is going to on sell a Flipstart like calmshell form factor PDA with 4GB storage hard drive, for me this would be good enough to run our daily life!

link

it would on sale US probably a month after thro' Dynamism

i am looking for a review of it....

10/19/04 + Chekote

Nice. Flipy rotatey screen too.

What OS is that running?

Recent Blog: Flipstart Camera

10/19/04 + illucid

It runs some kind of linux. I remember looking at that model from an english site.... It is much easier to read for those of us not fluent in Japanese :-D anyway, i remember that Dynamism doesn't do 100% conversions of the OS so some menu's etc. Are still in Japanese. Which is a problem.... But if it is cheap i might actually buy one (but i bet it isn't because the old one with no HD was like $1000 US)

edited: Nov 07 2004 + OQObsessed

The Zaurus OS can be converted to 100% English by flashing the ROM. See pdaXrom, OpenZaurus, and Cacko

You can get a new or used Zaurus from Conics for much less than Dynamism. Conics does not provide technical support for the Zaurus, but Zaurus User Group is the best site for all things Zaurus, anyways.

11/08/04 + sett

the Zaurus looks great, but it's an 'embedded' linux flavour, if i'm not mistaken. an embedded linux is to linux as winCE is to WinXP ? correct me if i'm wrong, but would it be able to run standard linux desktop apps ?

ps: the zaurus cpu probably isn't as fast as the x86/crusoe handtop cpu's.

11/08/04 + dbruzzone

sett,

The versions of Linux that run on Sharp's PDAs/handtops/whatever have been "lightened"... However, you *can* run most applications (or versions of those applications) on the devices... For example, you can download gcc and the Qt/Embedded and/or Qtopia/Opie libraries and compile/link graphical applications (which, at the code level, look a lot like GUI applications for KDE) on the device... And since you can do this, you can also write/compile/link more traditional Unix command-line applications on the device as well...

I've also had a good degree of success with some precompiled binaries in Debian's ARM tree (For example, I was able to get ettercap to work on my SL-5500). It was a pain to set up because I needed to manually take care of all the dependancies, but it worked... And I haven't played with my 5500 for a while, so who knows?... Maybe apt/dpkg/etc. (The package management tools that come with Debian and that also run on the Zaurus, OpenZaurus, etc.) now work wonderfully well and make the process very easy...

Some other good examples of the kind of stuff that you can do on "embedded" Linux (that you can't typically do on the likes of many or all Windws CE/Pocket PC devices)... Run a full iptables firewall... Run a "mini" Debian distribution (including XFree86, etc.)... Run most daemons that you could run on a Linux desktop machine or server (Yes, sshd and Apache + PHP *are* available)... Etc., etc., etc.

So to answer your question: You can, IMO, do a lot more with "embedded" Linux than you can with "embedded" Windows (<dons_flameproof_attire>and sometimes even full-size Windows</dons_flameproof_attire>).

Recent Blog: dbruzzone's OQO journal - Day two

edited: Nov 09 2004 + OQObsessed

Well, it's "embedded" Linux in the sense that the OS resides in the internal Flash ROM. However, the ROM is user-flashable, which is how the alternate environments can be installed. It is also possible for the user to customize his own ROM and flash the Zaurus with it.

The Zaurus can run standard Linux desktop apps (see this). The caveat is that the software must be compiled to run on the Zaurus. Therefore, the user must have access to the source of the program. Also, some apps may need to be tweaked in order to work on the CPU/RAM/Screen Resolution and Linux Distribution of the Zaurus.

11/08/04 + sett

thanks for the answers! and i'm very impressed by the screenshots on the pdaxrom website (esp. quake). very.

11/09/04 + OQObsessed

@ dbruzzone
OpenZaurus 3.5.1 is now available! I have not tried it for myself yet, but I hear that there have been many under-the-hood upgrades, and there is now a choice between QT and X-Window GUI's.
The pdaXrom team has been promising to support the older 5XXX series Zauri for a long while now, but they might actually get around to it after the next release.

@ sett
The latest pdaXrom and OpenZaurus distros have implemented a feature called "soft-float", which drastically improves the performance of Floating-Point intensive tasks (such as Quake!)

10/24/06 + robfiglabs

If you're interested in the Zaurus as a Linux Handtop, take a look at the screenshots here:
screenshots

Some words here:
zaurus details

and the user guide here:
user guide

Cheers
Rob Charlton
Fig Labs Ltd
www.figlabs.com